Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Purdy Bowers, left, and Lewis Oliver were among six black men hired by the Savannah Fire Department on May 1, 1963 as the department re-integrated. They gathered with Savannah Fire & Emergency Services officials Wednesday afternoon to commemorate the milestone.

When Purdy Bowers and Lewis Oliver decided to join the Savannah Fire Department 50 years ago, history was the last thing on their minds.

At the time, both men said, they were young adults — both former Savannah State College students — looking, quite simply, for gainful employment.

“The truth is I went to apply for some other job, and when I was there they told me I could put in an application for the fire department as well, so that’s what I did,” Bowers said Wednesday afternoon at Savannah Fire & Emergency Services’ downtown headquarters where officials recognized the 50th anniversary of the men’s hiring. “I went for a different job and ended up as a firefighter.”

And not just any firefighter, one of the city’s first six black firefighters of modern times. Bowers and Oliver are the only living members off the initial class of black firefighters who began working for the city on May 1, 1963.

Today, Savannah City Council will recognize their accomplishments with a an official resolution.

Once hired, the two men — along with Theodore Rivers, Porter Screen, Cordell Heath and Warnell Robinson — were assigned to Station 4, where the city had built them their own, segregated quarters.

They became close friends, Bowers remembered, but their skills as firefighters were questioned. That was until they quickly proved themselves.

“I recall the biggest fire we’d gone to at that point,” said Bowers, who spent eight years with the department before being drafted into the U.S. Army. “People for some reason assumed we were not going to fight that fire. I was thinking, ‘What do you expect? It’s my job.’ But that’s the thing, that’s the way it was at the time.”

It didn’t take long for the black firefighters to be accepted, Oliver said. In 20 years with the department he worked side-by-side with people of all races, attaining the rank of battalion chief.

He recalled his first day after being transferred from Station 4 to the department’s headquarters.

“I came over here into headquarters, I didn’t know what to expect; a (white) guy — he’d been on a while — and he said, ‘Let me tell you something, Oliver, anything I can help you with you let me know. And we stayed pals until forever.’”

Current Savannah Fire Chief Charles Middleton said he was honored to help the men mark the milestone, because it helped pave the way for his own opportunity to become the city’s fire chief.

“This is a really big deal for us, for the city, generally, but for the fire department, specifically. Fire services has a history of being very resistant to change, very traditionalist,” said Middleton, who is the city’s second black fire chief. “It doesn’t take much to realize that if it weren’t for what they went through, someone like me wouldn’t be here right now. So, certainly, there’s a huge appreciation for what these men did.”

Neither Bowers nor Oliver, really considered what their hiring meant at the time; on Wednesday both men said they’re glad they played a small role in moving society forward.

“Everything has changed,” Bowers said. “Here things have changed, you’ve got a black chief. A lot of society has changed, too. Look, you’ve got a black president. We were put in a station house where they built an extra (living quarters) in the back for us because we were black.”